Well, the heat and humidity has finally found us this week. That's OK though, I'd still take this weather any day over the freezing cold of winter. But it's a good week to stay down in the cool basement shop and get some projects moving.

Today I have a few fancy Wheelmen available. It has been a while since I have done up any tools with the old style patterning and I'd like to get back to doing a bit more of it. My patterning equipment has been out of commission for some time and although it is not 100% back in business I'm slowly getting there. I still have a bunch of stuff to rebuild and am always on the lookout for new finishing methods too...patterns below include Coral Reef, Reverse Coral Reef, Jungle Stripes and Bubbles.

Since there are only 14 of these tools we will do this as a Sign Up Sale. Please remember that it's a strict one entry per person limit and any duplicates will be discarded. Winning entrants can choose which tool they want or leave it up to me. They are all nice though so I think everyone will be happy. :)

The Fancy Wheelmen will run $85 plus shipping and the link to sign up is below. The Sign Up period will run until 12 Noon Eastern time. After that I will shut down the sign up, draw the winners by random number and send out emails to them shortly afterwards. Please make sure your email is valid or I will have no way to contact you. And please do check your email as well as the winner list so you don't miss the purchase link.

The Sign Up period is over, thanks so much to everyone who participated! I will post the list of winners shortly.

Friday, July 24, 2015

Just a friendly reminder that I have all sorts of goodies coming up over the next several weeks. Working frantically on them right now...probably no sale today however as it is a family holiday.

With that in mind, please help me out and ensure you get your stuff in a timely manner by making sure that your Paypal addresses are up to date. I had to chase a few folks down recently for bad zip codes, old addresses, etc...

Also, lately Paypal has been having a bit of trouble. On the last two big sales I had orders suddenly appear two days afterwards. These were orders that were made during the time the sale was open but for some reason were lost in the system. Even though I reloaded the Paypal Payments Received list many times while making mailing labels and again a day later these orders never showed up. Finally, a week or two later I got emails from folks saying they never got their item, so I went back and sure enough, NOW those orders are there in the list. It's a bit frustrating to get through the whole sale and get everything packaged up only to find out that some orders got missed because of weird internal issues at Paypal. Luckily I had a few extra tools and was able to fulfill the lost orders.

So, with that in mind, be aware that after a sale is over I will be making mailing labels and doing up the packages. Usually I am done in anywhere from 4-8 hours. When I create the label you will receive an email from Paypal with tracking. If you do not receive an email confirmation within 24-48 hours (give them time just in case the system is backed up) please drop me a note and make sure that I got the order.

I'll be going easy for the next sale or two with a couple of small volume SUSales just to make sure paypal has their act together. ;)

Monday, July 13, 2015

It's a warm summer week here in the hills of Western MA. I don't dare complain too much about heat though because I'd always rather see it hot than what we go through at the opposite time of year.

Projects are humming along nicely. Once the decks are cleared of the current offering I will be turning my attention to finishing those T Wrex tools and sending them off to heat treat later this week. Then I'll start grinding the Mini Wedgies after that. SEVERAL totally unexpected little surprises came up last week so stay tuned for more info on those, but I can tell you right now that there's going to be a LOT of happy Atwoodites later this summer if I can get all these done. Hint, one's a metal that begins with T and another that begins with a letter that's later in the alphabet. ;)

So today I finally have the Wheelman Bike Tools finished. This is a minimalist version of the old model. While I liked the originals very much, I felt they were quite huge and heavy. Plus, the dual over and under bits were a little too much for the O-rings to handle. So, I went back to drawing board and came up with something a bit simpler.

The Wheelman tools are designed to ride on the keys as a key fob. They feature a 15mm axle wrench, all three common spoke wrench sizes, a cap lifter, a 1/4 hex opening, a tire lever/pry tip and a lanyard or key ring attachment point. In addition, I have given these aggressive side grips. The material is .160 (5/32) titanium and they measure 3.75 inches long by 1 inch wide at the widest end so they are fairly substantial in size.

This first batch is all titanium and as usual with my ti batches the colors vary widely from solids to color fades. There a ton of variations here. Another much bigger batch in steel will be coming later this summer or early fall once I get my lazy butt in gear and start grinding them.

The Wheelman tools will run $70 plus shipping. It's a one per customer sale for this run please and the order link is below. Thanks for stopping in, and also for your endless patience and enthusiasm for my little creations!

Saturday, July 04, 2015

Thanks for the great turnout everyone! Here is the list of winners and emails are going out to them now. And a donation for $540 has already been made to Fisher House Foundation. Happy 4th to you all and thanks again to the military service members and their families. :)

Today I thought I might offer up a little thank you to the men and women who serve in our armed forces and their families. We sure do appreciate their hard work and sacrifice.

To mark the day and honor them I have made just 6 red, white and blue keyfobs using anodized titanium, white Delrin and red anodized aluminum five flute Lanslide beads. This will be a Sign Up Sale and will run for one hour, from 12 Noon eastern time to 1PM eastern time today. Afterwards I will pick the 6 winners by random number and send them the sales link.

One entry per person please! It's been a while since I did one of these so if you haven't entered a Sign Up Sale before please take time to read the rules.

These special fobs will run $95 each shipped and all proceeds are going to be donated to Fisher House Foundation whose vital work supports our wounded veterans and their visiting families. They make us proud and we can't thank them enough.

SUSale is over. Thank you so much everyone! I'm sure the Fisher House Foundation will be delighted for your support as well. I will post the list of winners in a few minutes and send emails. Thanks again and have a great weekend. :) SUSale Rules: Please Read!SUSale Entrants List

Thursday, July 02, 2015

Man, I simply can't believe it's July already. I have a funny feeling that this summer is going to fly by in a flash... It's a little gloomy and humid here today but we're supposed to have great sunny weather for the holiday weekend.

Things continue to progress nicely in the shop this week. My cleanup and reorganization efforts are paying off hugely already and it's making a big difference. Now to turn my attention more intently towards production.

Speaking of production, the Wheelman bike tools are coming along very well and I should finally be ready for a sale sometime in the next week. The T-Wrex tools just need some minor grinds and cleanup and they will be ready to go out the door to heat treat, figure two days of solid work left on them. The 3V Mini Wedgies in the same thick stock are started and will be next in line for grinding, followed by the Semi Roid P15 Prybabies. Now that I have everything more organized I can see all the other projects lined up too and I can tell you there is much grinding in my future. :)

Today I have the new FunnyBones done. These are made of my usual 5/32 (.160) CPM 154 steel and they are quite similar to the original design. I made some small tweaks such as changing the edge grips, replacing the old metric set with the same odd number set 5-15mm from the metric Atwrench project, and the cap lifter is now round instead of wrenchy. All in all a very simple but solid tool and a handy one for your pocket, toolbox or car.

FunnyBones will run $65 plus shipping and the link to purchase is below. It's a small batch so one per customer on them please. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you all have a marvelous and relaxing 4th of July weekend ahead!